In a testament to the vital need for non corporate, independent media, the non-profit MinnPost.com posted a Five Alarm bombshell: Seymour Hersh stated that a top secret assassination squad reported directly to Dick Cheney in the Bush Administration.

Ignored by the corporate mainstream press -- as usual -- Hersh's comments were picked up and followed up upon by the MinnPost following a forum at the University of Minnesota.

Hersh almost in passing revealed:

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

Moreover, Hersh dropped a second Five Alarm bombshell: the CIA was more deeply involved in spying on American citizens than ever previously revealed: "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."

Like BuzzFlash, the MinnPost has shown the importance of a completely independent media, free of corporate influence, to expose the crimes and shocking actions of those in power.

Coming from anybody else, these allegations would be met with some skepticism. But Eric Black of the online MinnPost knew that Hersh, a long-time intelligence correspondent for the New Yorker, has impeccable credentials and bats nearly 100% with his analysis and conclusions. So he not only found the dynamite buried in a question and answer session, Black followed up by e-mail with Hersh to verify the quotes.

Let BuzzFlash know if a former vice-president ordering and overseeing the assassinations of people in foreign countries makes the front page news of any mainstream corporate newspaper, the nightly news, or corporate radio. Somehow we doubt it will get much play, if any.

That's why we need the independent media, such as MinnPost and BuzzFlash.

Hersh spoke indirectly to the need for alternative sources of information when he observed:

“The major newspapers joined the [Bush] team,” Hersh said. Top editors passed the message to investigative reporters not to “pick holes” in what Bush was doing. Violations of the Bill of Rights happened in the plain sight of the public. It it was not only tolerated, but Bush was re-elected.

But the only completely independent alternative to the corporate press is a grassroots-supported media, which is accountable to the citizens of America and its communities.

MinnPost.com proved that once again.

Now, we still have a question at BuzzFlash.

When will Dick Cheney be tried and put away for war crimes and violations of American law?